Waste tackling: Innovative solutions and tough decisions required

Waste tackling: Innovative solutions and tough decisions required

Landfills are aching under the burden of wastes being progressively dumped on them. Cities like Kochi,Trivandrum are running short of areas to be used as landfill for accommodating tons of waste being generated on daily basis. To counter this, concerted efforts in the direction of waste transformation into useful energy needs to be undertaken.

Tackling the waste in Kerala a big task

State-of-the-art incinerating plants are the need of the hour. They can gobble up humongous amounts of waste and transform them into usable energy. The waste being burnt can be the trash that is left once the initial garbage has been subjected to recycling, composting and other waste treatment activities. Landfill problems have compelled policy makers to chalk out long term waste management strategy. Plasma gasification technology is also hailed as the solution of the new era. However, municipals are cautious with this and are tentatively using this to understand the environmental impact, cost competiveness and efficacy.

Any effective waste management method can really prove its worth once the planning is done years ahead. This involves devising proper strategy for systematic collection of wastes, optimum recycling and then subjecting the leftovers to incineration or plasma gasification. Enough capital needs to be sanctioned to build state of the art infrastructure equipped with ultramodern tools and resources.

Expanding the landfills or purchasing other landfills isn’t a viable answer to waste management problem especially in kerala. Something concrete needs to be done within the next ten to fifteen years. Even after recycling the entire garbage, about thirty percent remains, dealing with which requires a wise and tough decision. It is imperative that the fertility of the land and watershed are saved. The smoke and pollutants emanating from the incinerator can be remedied with innovative methods.

Steam generated from waste burning can produce enough force to drive turbines into generating so much megawatts that electricity problem of millions of households can be alleviated. Policy makers have to be prudent in this regard.